Lurleen actively campaigned for the position of Alabama Governor.
She became Alabama's first woman governor on January 16, 1967,
receiving 64% of the vote. She is remembered for working for the upgrading of
Alabama's mental health facilities while governor.

Presiding over the affairs of state left little time for fishing and the outdoors, but once following a lengthy banquet, the governor returned to Montgomery where she tarried long enough to change from evening dress to a hunting suit. By daybreak she was on her way hunting and bagged a 15-pound turkey with her second shot.

Obviously already very ill, Governor Lurleen Wallace is pictured with Col. C. W. Russell, director of the Department of Public Safety and J. C. Barry, vice president of the Alabama Safety Council, Inc. as they warned Fourth of July motorists of the four major causes of accidents.

In her short term as governor, Lurleen Wallace was hospitalized with cancer
on several occasions before her death on May 7, 1968.